【雅思精读】为什么直播女王薇娅带货能力这么强？（上）
关于直播带货这个话题，目前应该是非常火热的，其中到货主播薇娅也是受到很多人的关注，本文我们就为大家带来关于薇娅的阅读素材，大家可以学习一下。拓展阅读对于提升大家的雅思词汇，素材积累量都是非常有帮助的！点击查看精读解析！
*注：本文摘自6月4日《彭博商业周刊》
The World’s Livestream Queen Can Sell Anything直播女王薇娅什么都能卖出去A millionaire at 34 and bigger than “Sunday Night Football,” China’s star saleswoman Viya rules a $60 billion world of live online shopping.34岁的百万富翁薇娅统治着一个价值600亿美元的在线购物王国
1. Huang Wei can sell anything. For instance: In April, Huang—known professionally as Viya—sold a rocket launch for around 40 million yuan ($5.6 million). The live, online shopping extravaganza the 34-year-old hosts most nights for her fans across China is part variety show, part infomercial, part group chat. Last month, she hit a record-high audience of more than 37 million—more than the “Game of Thrones” finale, the Oscars or “Sunday Night Football.”
黄薇（薇娅本名）啥都能卖出去。今年四月，黄薇以4000万元(合560万美元)的价格卖出了一枚火箭。这位34岁的买了完成了一次火箭发射。黄薇今年34岁，很多个夜晚，她都为全国各地的粉丝带来一场在线购物盛宴。她的直播集综艺，广告合在线聊天于一体。上个月，她的直播观众达到3700万，比《权利的游戏》大结局，奥斯卡颁奖典礼和《星期日橄榄球之夜》的观众多，创下了记录。
图片来源网络
2. Each night, Viya’s audience places orders worth millions of dollars—typically for cosmetics, appliances, prepared foods or clothing, but she’s also moved houses and cars. On Singles Day, China’s biggest shopping event of the year, she did more than 3 billion yuan in sales. The spread of coronavirus, which put most Chinese people under stay-at-home orders, doubled her viewership.
每天晚上，薇娅都会卖出数百万的商品，主要是化妆品，电器，熟食和衣服，有时候她也卖房子和车子。光棍节是中国最大的购物节，薇娅光棍节销售额超过30亿元。新冠病毒的传播导致很多中国人只能待在家里，这也使得她的观众翻了一番。
3. In a world where we all shop almost exclusively from our couches, Viya is one vision of our collective future. Livestream shopping is a natural confluence of several current tech trends—streaming, influencers, social, commerce—and offers companies a new path to consumers' hearts and wallets. Tesla, Procter & Gamble and supermodel-turned-beauty-entrepreneur Miranda Kerr, among others, have turned to Viya to introduce them to the Chinese market. The queen of China’s $60 billion ecosystem of live online shopping, Viya earned an estimated 30 million yuan in 2018, according to the most recent figures from Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.
在一个人们大多只在沙发上购物的世界里，薇娅让我们看到了我们未来的生活是什么样子。直播购物融合了流媒体，网络红人，社交和商业几大技术趋势，为企业提供了一条通向消费者钱包和情感的道路。特斯拉(Tesla)、宝洁(Procter & Gamble)和由超级名模转型为美容企业家的米兰达•可儿(Miranda Kerr)等公司都找到薇娅，想通过她进入中国市场。据中国电子商务巨头阿里巴巴的最新数据显示，中国在线购物市场价值600亿美元，薇娅2018年收入估计是3000万美元。
4. None of this bodes well for brick-and-mortar retail, already hobbled by online alternatives. The coronavirus pandemic—and the ensuing economic downturn—have dropped sales and foot traffic off a cliff. Offline, non-grocery retail is expected to drop 20% this year, according to Forrester Research. J.C. Penney, J. Crew and Pier One Imports have already filed for bankruptcy protection. And with no vaccine in sight, does trying on clothes or testing lipstick at a cosmetics counter still have any of its pre-pandemic appeal?
实体零售业深受在线购物的打击，对于他们来说，薇娅的高收入并不是什么好兆头。新冠疫情以及随之而来的经济衰退使销售量和客流量急剧下降。根据弗雷斯特研究公司的数据，线下非食品店的零售额今年预计将下降20%。J.C. Penney、J. Crew和Pier One Imports已经申请破产保护。疫苗什么时候研制成功还未可知，在这样的情况下，在店里试穿衣服或测评口红还能像新冠疫情之前那么吸引人吗？
5. “I position myself as someone who helps the customer make a decision—I need to think about their needs,” said Viya, late one May night. She wore casual black pants and a white T-shirt with a Yankees baseball cap and long silver earrings, all items which had been for sale during that night's show. She dresses casually on purpose, she says, to create intimacy with viewers who are most likely home winding down.
薇娅在五月的一个深夜说，“我把自己当成是帮助顾客做决定的人，我必须考虑他们的需求。”她穿着黑色休闲裤搭着白色T恤，戴着洋基队的棒球帽和耳朵上挂着长长的银耳钉，所有这些都是当晚直播的时候要出售的东西。她说，她故意穿得很随意，这样就能与那些呆在家里放松的观众建立亲密关系。
6. “Specifically, my ambition is to offer everything my fans might need,” she said. “Doorbells, carpets, toothbrushes, furniture, mattresses, everything.”
她说，“具体点说，我的目标就是为我的粉丝找到他们需要的所有东西，包括门铃，地毯、牙刷、家具、床垫等。”
7. “E-commerce livestreaming,” as it’s lovingly called by analysts, will already feel familiar to many in America and elsewhere; the latest stage in an evolution from infomercial pioneer Ron Popeil “But wait, there’s more”, the Home Shopping Network, Oprah’s Book Club, and Kim Kardashian. Amazon’s been experimenting with the concept for more than a year, most recently teaming up with “Project Runway” stars Heidi Klum and Tim Gunn for a spin-off and retail tie-in that will make the show’s winning designs immediately available to buy. Facebook has been trying to get users to shop on its platform for years; in May, it announced a partnership with Shopify to help integrate buying there and on Instagram.
分析人士称其为“电子商务直播”，这在美国等地早就已经为人熟知了。从电视购物先驱罗恩·波皮尔“等等！还有很多！”到家庭购物网，从奥普拉读书俱乐部再到金·卡戴珊，电子商务是从这些形式中发展而来的。亚马逊对此已经做了一年多的试验，最近，亚马逊和亚马逊已经对这个概念进行了一年多的试验，最近与《天桥骄子》的海蒂·克拉姆以及蒂姆·冈合作，进行了分拆和零售捆绑，使该节目的获奖设计可以马上出售。Facebook多年来一直试图让用户在其平台上购物，今年5月，Facebook宣布与Shopify合作，帮助整合网上购物和Instagram。
8. “Influencers, livestreaming, smart phones, social—those things are universal,” said Benedict Evans, an independent analyst who’s covered technology from Silicon Valley and London for 20 years. “It’s hard to predict in advance, but I struggle to say that influencers selling stuff online wouldn’t work outside of China.”
本尼迪克特·埃文斯是一名独立分析师，在硅谷和伦敦从事技术研究已有20年。他说，“网络红人、直播、智能手机、社交——这些东西都是通用的。这很难提前预测，但我认为，通过网红带货在其他国家不一定行得通。”
9. Nowhere is the potential of livestreaming more apparent than China, where the boom suggests livestream shopping can become a deeply embedded habit for consumers and an important tool for retailers. Western technology isn’t quite there yet, with its bramble of offline stores, online markets, social media recommendations, payment processors and third-party portals. Alibaba’s technology, on the other hand, allows the audience to watch a live stream, chat with other viewers, and select and pay for a product—all at the same time. There’s no friction between entertainment and buying, which is the whole point.
直播的潜力在中国表现得最为明显。在中国，直播购物的繁荣表明，直播购物可以发展成为消费者的一种消费习惯，也能成为零售商的一件重要工具。西方的技术还没有发展到这个阶段，因为西方有很多离线商店、在线市场、社交媒体推荐、支付处理和第三方门户网站。另一方面，阿里巴巴的技术可以让观众在观看直播的同时，和与其他观众聊天、选择和购买商品。娱乐和购买之间没有断裂，这才是重点。
10. “I can’t miss Viya’s shows,” said Linda Qu, a 30-year-old tech worker in Hangzhou. After she puts her four-year-old son to bed, Qu lets Viya’s livestream run on her smartphone while she’s doing yoga or watching TV on the couch. Nearly every show, she clicks to buy. The FOMO keeps her coming back: “What if there’s something nice and I didn’t get it? What a loss.”
Linda Qu现年30岁，在杭州的科技行业工作，她说 “我不能错过薇娅的直播。”在把四岁的儿子哄睡之后，她会一边在沙发上做瑜伽或者看电视，一边智能手机上看薇娅的直播。几乎每一场直播她都会买东西，措施恐惧症让她不断重复：“如果有什么好东西我没买到怎么办？损失了一个亿啊！”
11. That’s the clincher for companies desperate to impress China’s growing middle class, customers who have learned the hard way to be suspicious of counterfeits and knock-offs. China powered one-third of global consumption growth from 2010 to 2017, according to a report from McKinsey Global Institute, and that role is set to continue as the economy paces the pandemic recovery. And over the next 10 years, the growth in Chinese consumption is expected to equal that of the U.S. and Western Europe combined.
对于那些急于吸引中国日益壮大的中产阶级的公司来说，这是关键所在。中产消费者已经学会了如何辨识假冒伪劣产品。麦肯锡全球研究所的一份报告显示，2010年至2017年，中国推动了全球三分之一的消费增长，随着中国疫情减轻，经济复苏，中国经济还将继续带动世界经济发展。未来10年，中国的消费增长预计将相当于美国和西欧的总和。
12. Customers used to move slowly down the path from awareness to interest to purchase to—ideally—loyalty, said Helen Lu, spokesperson for the Greater China division of Procter & Gamble. “Working with the top livestreamers like Viya, the process gets much shorter,” she said.
宝洁大中华区发言人Helen Lu说，过去，消费者从意识到兴趣，从购买到忠诚的过程往往很很漫长，她说:“和薇娅这样的顶级主播合作，这个过程会缩短很多。”
13. There’s no friction between entertainment and buying, which is the whole point. Most nights, Viya streams from a small studio in her headquarters, a 10-story warehouse in the Chinese tech hub of Hangzhou. The show is only a sliver of a 500-person enterprise called Qianxun Group; it includes talent management for dozens of livestreamers, volume retail and supply chain management. Future plans include consulting and ad agency-type work for brands that want access to their audience, plus multimedia. The company plans to raise money from investors this month, take on a strategic partner by the end of the year and, by 2025 at the latest, list shares.
娱乐和购买之间并没有什么矛盾，这才是重点。大多数晚上，薇娅都会从她公司总部的一个小工作室里出来。她公司总部位于中国科技中心杭州，是一个10层高的大楼。薇娅来自杭州谦寻集团，该公司有500多名员工，她的直播只是这家公司很小的一部分，公司还有数十名主播，以及主播管理，批量零售管理和供应链管理等方面的人才。未来，公司计划为那些想要接触到受众的品牌提供咨询，广告代理服务以及多媒体服务。该公司计划本月筹集到资金，在年底之前找到一个战略合作伙伴，最迟在2025年之前上市。
14. “This year is the turning point for this industry—I said so even before the coronavirus pandemic,” said Qianxun’s Chief Executive Officer Alves Huang, better known as Aoli. He’s Viya’s stepbrother; her husband is the company chairman. “But the pandemic has pushed many offline retailers online, and with many well-known people getting into the game, there’s huge attention from everywhere.”
谦寻CEO奥利说，“今年是直播行业的转折之年——这一点早在新冠疫情之前我就已经说过了。新冠疫情迫使很多零售转向线上。越来越多的明星加入到这个行业中，引起了广泛关注。” 奥利是薇娅的继兄，而薇娅的丈夫是公司董事长。
15. His office is on the fourth floor, next to the meeting room where Viya and her team sift through products. The studios are on the fifth floor, but the latest innovation—what can only be described as a private department store—is on the second and third floors. The footprint is more than 10,000 square meters, or about 1.5 soccer fields.
他的办公室在四楼，就在薇娅和她的团队筛选产品的会议室旁边。工作室在五楼，但最新的私人百货商店在二楼和三楼。百货商店占地1万多平方米，相当于1.5个足球场。
16. Food and home goods are in one massive section, followed by clothes and accessories, separated by category: sunglasses, fashion bags, pearl accessories, sneakers, pajamas, jeans, lingerie, and so on. There’s a showcase for Korean products and another for Australia and New Zealand, with more to come. With bright, soft lights everywhere, streamers can go live from the aisles if they want to.
食品和家居用品是一个大板块，其次是衣服和饰品，按类别分开:太阳镜、时尚包、珍珠饰品、运动鞋、睡衣、牛仔裤、内衣等等。有一个韩国产品展示会，还有一个澳大利亚和新西兰产品展示会，以后还会有更多产品。到处都有明亮柔和的灯光，如果主播愿意的话，可以直接在走道上就开始直播。
17. Viya has enough star power to summon whatever she wants from companies eager to be featured on her show. The showroom serves a whole community of livestreamers, including the 40 or so under the company’s management—within three years, they’ll have 100, CEO Huang says. They all need a steady influx of products to feature, in part to prove they can drive sales. Brands pay for prominent placement on the Qianxun shelves, just like they do in offline stores.
薇娅有足够的人气从那些想要在她的直播中出境对的公司那里搞到任何她想要的东西。直播间是所有主播共用的，其中包括40名左右的公司管理人员。奥利说，三年内，公司将打造出100名主播。这些主播都需要源源不断地推出新产品，这就证明他们能够推动销售。就像在实体店一样，为了在谦寻货架上得到一个更突出的位置，品牌会付钱。
